7-Eleven Spat With Franchisees Gives the First Circuit ‘Déjà Vu’

7-Eleven Inc. and franchisees who operate its convenience stores traded blows on what counts as a service and in which direction the parties’ money flows during Wednesday oral arguments at the First Circuit.

The Boston-area franchisees argued that they cleared a Massachusetts worker misclassification law’s threshold question of service provision. But “to say that running the store is a service to 7-Eleven is something I’m having trouble getting my mind around,” Judge Bruce M. Selya of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said.

There’s no difference between the franchisees here and the managers who run company-owned stores, ...